Binder ‘happy with strong’ P7 finish, Oliveira ‘not riding as I want to’

Brad Binder kept his three-race run of consecutive top ten finishes intact during the Aragon MotoGP, while Miguel Oliveira struggled in P14. 

As we’ve seen many times this season, Binder came through from a relatively average qualifying - started 12th, to secure seventh after battles with Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini late on. 

Binder did eventually lose out to Bastianini for sixth, however, it’s a ‘strong’ result for the South African given the difficulties the team faced in Aragon.  

"I’m not 100% happy for sure with seventh place because obviously you always want more. But considering the way things were going in the race, I’m really happy to have finished and I had quite another strong finish," added Binder. 

"For us it was okay. It was a difficult day for us here, it’s been a little bit of a difficult weekend, difficult last few races. 

"But the thing that makes me happy is the team is always working so hard and we’re trying so many things to try and solve our issues a little bit and be a little bit closer to the front. 

"Hats off to the boys for working so hard and hopefully next time will be a little closer."

While Binder was able to turn a tough weekend around during the race, Oliveira wasn’t able to produce the same type of performance. 

The Catalunya race winner was consistently around the final points scoring positions and called the current situation he and the team are in as ‘the reality’, while ‘I’m not riding as I want to’.  

Oliveira said: "Was a really tough race for me. Since the beginning - apart from not having a good rear grip I just struggled with the front tyre the whole race. 

"I was having huge slides on the front end without having much braking. I’ve been having this type of feeling for some races now and we just need to think of something different, some solution to be able to have my natural riding. 

"Now I’m not riding as I want to and we are paying the price. We are not competitive enough. This is the reality. Our rivals are doing much better than us."